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Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Pay very close attention to these cake pairs, now; I wouldn't want you to get the Wreck mixed up with the Inspiration Cake. [eye roll]

First up:

Elodie M. asked her baker to do this, only with far fewer rose petals. The baker obliged by providing this:

Ah, nothing symbolizes the beginning of a new life with the one you love quite like shriveled old rose petals. On the plus side, at least they distract the eye away from the poor cake construction. The weird grass sprigs sprouting haphazardly from the side and top help in that arena, too.

Next, Claire G. discovered the hard way how important "pipemanship" (as opposed to penmanship) is.

What she wanted:

(I believe this is from Martha Stewart.)

What she got:

Such delicacy, such grace...

By the by, I don't monogram much, but I think the middle initial is supposed to be larger than the other two. I also think that if "msk" were a word, it would accurately describe the leveling job done on the leaning wonder here.

And lastly, Hannah W. asked for this, only with square tiers instead of round:

She even brought in the brown ribbon and fresh blue hydrangeas for the bakery to use. Pretty simple, right? Just make some white square tiers. But you know how some bakeries are, always complicating things...

I think some of the problem may be "Bargain Hunting Brides". The true professional says, "That will be $700" and the pro-wanna-be says "$150". "Ooooooo" says the BHB "I'll go with that one and save sooooo much money.Then I can get the ice sculpture swan too. How hard can making a cake be anyways? I'm giving them a picture to follow" (crickets chirping)

it never ceases to amaze me, the quality cakes you find and post on this site. especially the wedding cakes. I can not imagine delivering any of the cakes these people got and expecting money for them. my jaw drops every time I see one. I always wonder what goes on in the creators head as she/he steps back and looks over the "masterpiece" Thanks for making me feel a little more "Pro" every time you post one of these.

The first one looks like a nightmare to eat as well as just looking like a nightmarish dying garden. Everyone would have to peel off the abundant shriveled petals that are stuck to the frosting to even eat it. Lame.

I went to one wedding where the bride told us her cake didn't show up and ended up serving the standard sliced sheet cake from the restaurant kitchen where her reception was held. Now, I'm beginning to think her wedding cake was a wreck and she just had to hide it from us all in sheer shame!

Scary stuff. I have to say, I agree along the lines with anonymous, and I would be curious how much these cakes cost. Regardless, the 'professional' is still at fault for selling a skill that they obviously don't have, which there is WAY too much of in the wedding-industry. Sad, sad, sad. I hope all the brides are reviewing the cake makers all over the web to save other brides from this misfortune.

Hey, now - to all those who are saying "you get what you pay for..." These are embarrassing no matter where they got them. I used to be a cake decorator at a King Soopers grocery store, and we did quite a few wedding cakes and none of them ever looked as hideous as these! Except the one where the bride asked us to decorate it to match the decor of the Johnny Carinos where she had the reception, but I don't think that was our fault...

This is so sad! But at least the cake arrived. The cake at my best friend's wedding almost didn't. We were halfway through dinner before the cake lady arrived. She was cryin' the blues about having been in a car accident. She even brought picutres. Too bad the accident happened two days before the wedding. So once she arrived, she still had to put the cake together and put the icing on it and decorate it! Needless to say, we got a refund.

I am SO thankful my caterer/baker was able to do a good job on my cake (especially since I'd started reading the site just a few weeks before my wedding). It wasn't quite as ... finely detailed ... as I had imagined, but it was still a zillion miles closer - and a zillion times prettier!! - than these people got.

That last one. OH.MY. I'm not the greatest at decorating, but I wouldn't even make a hot mess like that. The brown part looks like she got uneven and tried to fix, and then tried again to fix...you know, kind of like when your mom cuts your bangs as a kid, and while evening them up, you end up with no bangs? Anyone? No? Ok. just me. Either way, those are sadly way off from the originals. Bless their cake makin' hearts :(

Ya know, I always think it can't get worse. And then I see this. Are you kidding me? On these people's wedding days? These are so wrecktastic that it's insane.

I have to know-- when the cake is delivered/picked up, do the cake 'decorators' look hesitant ("Oh, they are going to kill me for this crap") or excited ("Oh, they're going to love it!") ?? Do they know how bad it really is?

They say rain on your wedding day, or getting pooped on by a bird, brings good luck. Perhaps a cake wreck does too?

So I have to admit that I'm scratching my head because the bakeries tried to get FANCIER on two of those cakes. Yep, with 1 and 3, you just lay some pre-rolled fondant and add some craft store doo-dads. But they tried to do better.

Why?

Why?

Why?

Adding fake flowers is the fab secret of those who can't decorate cakes. I should know!

All of these cakes would make any bride cry on her wedding day!!! I think the last one is the worst though. Just how difficult is it to tell a round cake from a square cake? I am pretty sure my four year old could tell the difference!

I think I'm most flabbergasted by the first one, though the other two are also quite awesome. How hard is it to sprinkle rose petals onto a cake? I'd imagine it would be less difficult than sticking them to the sides...

sadly, I think I could have done better - and I don't make cakes. How hard is it for people to follow simple instructions like "square"? There's no excuse for a mistake like that. I would have told them to take some of these back - they're quite embarrassing.

I discovered your blog a few weeks ago and it has provided me with daily comic relief! The wedding wrecks, as funny as they are, however, just make me sad :( Honestly, how do these bakers/decorators sleep at night?!

I have made several wedding cakes for friends and family and am by no means a "professional". But I have to say, my cakes NEVER, NEVER, NEVER looked this bad. I can't believe a professional bakery would let trash like this out of their doors! I feel so bad for the brides...it would just ruin their day.

The sad part is with the "monagram one" you don't even have to pipe 'well' freehand. You could do the script on a computer. Size it right, copy it, do royal icing monograms and let dry. Place AT site and be done.

I am an 'at home' decorator' for just friends and such, but honestly I can do better than all of those. Really the first was easy easy easy, all the baker needed to do is NOT drop his Christmas tree on the damn cake and put the petals on "at the site'. --deep sigh---

I agree with the bargain hunting thing and as a professional (not cakes) I often get mad when people say "i can get it cheaper at XX", but people do figure out you get what you pay for....sadly a wedding you don't get a do-over.

I have to say you usually do get what you pay for but there are those exceptions. I do cakes from home and have never done a job like these examples. These were not hard cakes to replicate with fondant or buttercream. Someone just should have said "no I am not able to do this scale of cake for you." I think all they saw was $$$ I really wonder how much they asked for in return for these

I have to agree with Mona, my favorites appear to be the poor wedding cake disasters. I feel mucho sympathy for the brides who had so much anticipation for their beautiful cakes and ended up with hideous-ness, BUT (everything in life has a big but) they are so wrecktastic.

Thanks to the brides for sharing their horrors. Elodie M., such a seemingly simple design...such a wrecktastic execution. And the branch thing out of the top...was that actually on the cake, or behind it? Was that requested or improvised by the wreckerator?

Heather, apparently your wreckerator missed that day in kindergarten where they went over basic shapes...circle, square...so easy to confuse...right?

I can see the wanna-be pro screwing up plaid or the monograms (I shy away from even writing happy birthday on my kid's cakes but can do just about anything else), but seriously- was this the first time the decorator picked up a pastry bag?

Part of me always tries to defend the bakers, asking, "how could this have been the client's fault?" I look at the first one and say, "well maybe it was about right, except the baker forgot the 'fewer rose petals' thing, and then it got fried in a hot car, or the wedding was delayed two weeks after delivery of the cake.

The second one, wow, um, did the baker believe s/he had recreated the model? The bride could have provided a personal designed monogram, I suppose, or looked more closely at work samples. It's a baker competing out of their league of technical skill and knowing how to build a multi-tiered cake that doesn't fall over. The baker should have said, "it won't look as good as the picture."

And then the final one. I cannot defend it. The person who made this cake saw the picture, but was not given the ribbon or the instructions. "Square" and "round" should be concepts mastered by age five. And the baker knew damn well it was hideous, as they tried to gussy it up with the hideous roses.

I think cake #3 is the best wreck example ever, combining overall incompetence, with blatant lack of instruction following and huge gobs of icing. Now if only one of those flowers looked like a penis, and they'd chosen to pipe "ribon arund egges" on one of the tiers, it would be the perfect cake wreck.

Alix said "The first one looks like it was left outside on the doorstep just as the broom swept out the remnants from a funeral."

That cake reminds me of our city after Hurricane Juan. It looked like some giant had chewed all the trees and spit the leaves everywhere. There was green mulch everywhere.

Brides! The simplest fondant cake from the cake bible with bleeding hearts piped on it costs about $70 to bake and hours to assemble correctly. I know, becasue I made one for my tenth wedding anniversary in 1995.

The fondant had to be redone (and replaced) a few times. The piping had to be redone. It was a little lopsided, a bit lumpy and had an "accident" in the car on the way to my Sisters house. I should post a pic. Homemade fondant is a bee-otch for a novice.

Anyone who presents a cake like these to a bride obviously doesn't give a crap about you or your wedding.

That's what makes wedding cake wrecks so spectacular. It's such a big day, so many people are going to see it and no one is going to let you forget. There's so much that can go wrong. I love it.

I agree with the advice to BHB's. Money talks, wrecks walk (or sink and slide in the case of these ones). One thing you can do is arrange to bake your own cake if you have a favorite. Ask a local baker to decorate it for you. Some of them will.

The last one with the stripes. Is that the Cat in the Hat's Easter Bonnet?

wvotd unalin: "the layers and stripes are all unalin compared to the inspiration cakes."

I want to read an interview with brides who have received these wrecks. How explicit were they, what did they pay, how well-known is the bakery in town, how did they react when that hot mess showed up?

I would love an interview with an authentic wreck creator even more! What was the wrecker's training background? Did they worry that the original request was out of their skill level? Did some horrible tragedy occur in the kitchen or in transit? Did they feel the reactions of shock and horror were warranted, or were they blindsided? Did they ever play "One of these things is just not the same" on Sesame Street?

I. Just. Don't. Get. It. The rose petals are dead dead dead and the grass really is oddly skewering that cake; the one on top looks like a random chin whisker. On an elderly woman. I can at least fathom the wreckitude caused by a lack of skill or language/spelling errors or the ability to discern color or...(ran out of steam)...but that first wreck almost seems deliberate!? Did the decorator once date the groom? That cake is not only a wreck, it's low down and mean. I think it oozes hostility. What kind of frosting tastes good with that?

Wow. This made my heart hurt thinking fo the poor brides who had to have this as their wedding cake. Our wedding cake was done by a famous baker, who caters to celebrities and charges a small fortune for her work. Wouldn't ya know, she did our colors wrong and didn't listen to our instructions. Not to mention, when we went to our tasting she informed us that there was nothing to taste, as we should take her notoriety as all the proof she needed. Um, whatever. Were I a nastier person I would've written to all the cable shows that feature her to tell them she is a meanie!

I am soo linking to this post on my blog. Great stuff! Please do MORE weddings!

As a florist with 15 years of experience, I have decorated thousands of wedding cakes. Let me say here, that I have never seen it turn out well when the flowers are placed by the decorator. So my tip would be you pay for a florist let them do their part as well, and no frosting bombs/roses will end up on your cake instead of hydrangeas. Ohhh, the wrecks I have tried to hide with a few well placed flowers.

woah! im not a decorator, just things for home and 'fun' but the cake i did for my sis' wedding last wknd was a million times better than those wrecks! and here i was concerned because it wasn't exactly what she wanted. i need to direct her to this post just in case she was hiding disappointment, teehee! of course my service was free, so she'd better keep her disappointment to herself and be glad my imperfections were not a wreck

I agree with SmallShake. Being a victim of one of those terrible bang cuts by a family member - that is definitely what the brown stripe looks like. I can't believe that a bakery would actually take those to a wedding and ruin the bride's day like that. It makes me very thankful for mine - not top of the line, but better than that. #3 was definitely the worst.

You know, as a bride planning a wedding, I take strange comfort in the idea that if my cake is a disaster I can submit the photos to Cake Wrecks -- at least a bit of amusement would come out of my misfortune! :-)

Unfortunately a fair number of wedding "professionals" (DJs, florists, and yes, cake bakers) are people with little to no training looking to make a quick buck on the weekends. Some of these people are genuinely talented and will do a great job. Many are not. Ask for portfolios and references before you pay $200 for a wreck!

Monograms: The largest central initial is the last name. So the mSr (or was it a k) in the original photgraph seems to be for Martha R/K Stewart's own initials. (Why someone wanted Martha's initials on their cake eludes me but that's a separate question.)

And...ah...ah...I am not a professional. I am an amateur who has spent several years learning at home. My cakes are way, way better than those by these "professionals!" I've done many wedding cakes and they have all gotten rave reviews. How these dummy decorators can be professional just is beyond belief.

What I just can't understand is how decorators are sending cakes out lopsided! *Maybe* it was hot at the reception site and it started to melt, but how common is that? It happened to my cousin's fondant cake when her North Woods wedding happened in the middle of a freak heat wave and the reception site had no air conditioning. But at least it looked good before the layers started sliding!

And really, if you are provided with materials and don't use them, you're a moron. I used to help do wedding flowers and yeah, there are definitely cheapskates and Bridezillas out there, but honesty goes a long way toward a happy bride. There is no excuse for that last cake. Any of them, really, but especially the last one.

My wedding cake was made by a retired farmer who told me a) he only does butter cream (no problem!) b) he couldn't do the layering the way I wanted but had an acceptable alternative and c) he'd do the frosting design based on whatever he felt like doing that day. Based on his portfolio I didn't see a problem with that. I got a beautiful cake for 200 people for about $175. Granted, it was 10 years ago, but boy do I feel lucky after looking at these pictures!

These bakers must have been some awesome salespeople. I just can't think that anyone paid for these without seeing previous work. I am a baker and honest enough to say that I too, have wrecked before but NEVER a wedding cake! On the other hand, I am left to ponder how much was quoted initally for these jobs. I am willing to bet the brides went cheap and got what they paid for.

Honestly, they're hideous. But I can't help but wonder in these situations if the brides "got what they paid for." If they used a less expensive baker, maybe they should have chosen cakes from the baker's portfolio rather than expecting Marth Stewart quality for less. If they paid loads of cash for these cakes then it's a totally different issue. Why not roll with the punches and laugh it off? If we spent more time preparing for our marriages and less time planning for our weddings then maybe things like this wouldn't be such a big deal.

Holy cow. The first cake looks as if the decorator grabbed up the rose petals dropped by the flower girl and plastered them on the cake while the wedding party members were having the pictures made.

The second cake. Um ... no. It reminds me of the E.T. cake.

The third cake: Horrifying. What happened to the embellishments the bride provided? Did the dog eat them? Were the square layers so misshapen that the baker decided to cut them into circles? And why am I hearing Paul Simon's song "Slip-Slidin' Away" in my head right now?

I wonder if the brides checked the baker's portfolios. Even so, shame on the bakers for supplying such garbage. Especially #3. The bride gave them brown ribbon. Why did they use icing? It sounds like they ignored everything but the picture.

If someone showed up with a cake like these at my wedding, they would get punched in the face.

No excuse for this kind of "work."

If you don't have cake decorating ability, you should never, ever, ever take on the task of something so important as a wedding cake.

I love this website. It makes me laugh and makes me violently angry at the same time.

No wonder people have resorted to cupcake and doughnut towers these days.

Oh, my blood pressure! That last cake reminds me of why I left the flower business. Incompent workers that are too lazy to read their orders and follow simple directions. I can't count the times we got complaints over simple, careless mistakes. (Wedding mistakes were RARE, I will say.)

I'm bothered by two things, both with the 2nd cake:1) the girls name is Clair G, so presumably her monogram is going to be cGx (don't know her middle) so how did the bakery get that so wrong? You don't accidentally substitute mSk for cGx. It wasn't a mistake, clue 1 that this is a fake wreck.2) who takes a cake like this home? It's clearly sitting out on her table, surrounded by party favors. So presumably Claire G got to the bakery and decided that, despite this being a laughable joke, she would to fork over money for this thing. If she was worried about feeding her guest, a 19.99 supermarket plain cake would have looked better. Which makes this clue 2 that this is a fake wreck.

i don't often comment on the wrecks, but i just can't keep quiet on this one!

these are truly awful and wrecktastic all at the same time.

upon closer inspection of the first 2 pictures - it looks to me like the original may actually be buttercream frosted very smoothly, and the wreck looks like fondant under all that mess. does anyone else think it looks like the wreckerator actually used icing to attach the petals to the fondant? you can kind of see it peeking out from behind some of them. it also looks like the entire thing was dusted with powdered sugar. huh?

the second 2 wrecks have got to either be extreme budget hunting brides or shower cakes or both. who has a stack of paper plates sitting next to their wedding cake? and doesn't it look like the last one is sitting in someones unfinished basement? maybe just small at home receptions?

the awfulness is horrible (and really really funny!) but you do get what you pay for. i design wedding invitations and know what a pain the BHB brides can be. They all want the Martha Stewart invitation at the print it at home kit you get from Office Max price.

word verification - relfo - the bride relfoed all over the floor when she saw her sad sad cake.

I'm surprised by all the "You get what you pay for" comments on these -- the original cakes are SO SIMPLE! I mean, 3-tiered round white cake with rose petals sprinkled on top? Honestly, that's the kind of thing that you SHOULD be able to get at a WalMart bakery (OK, maybe have your florist provide the petals).

I will concur with many of the other posters, wedding wrecks are my faves.

I'm getting married in six weeks here, and am getting a very simple cake from a very highly recommended bakery with a website full of gorgeous pictures, so a wreck isn't likely. Thank God. Keeping the price within my budget may be harder, but they also have a reputation for making cakes that taste good, so I think it's worth it. I hope these poor brides have senses of humor, and got their money back...

I have to argue with the "you get what you pay for" comments: Our own wedding cake was made for the cost of materials by non-pro friends who had never made a wedding cake before... and it was beautiful and delicious. How do these "professional" bakeries manage to do such a crappy job? It's amazing.

A freelance/home baker made my wedding cake 10 years ago....and it was stunningly gorgeous! Drop-dead beautiful ivory filigree on 3ivory tiers. She outdid herself!These cakes are inexcusable!What are these people thinking when they make these disasters??Thanks for the laughs..I'm horrified for the brides, though!

With the popularity of CAKEWRECKS today, I think I would threaten -... er... I mean REMIND any bakery doing my wedding cake that it could easily be the focus of a WRECKREPORTER! Especially it doesn't meet expectation!

I suppose this could work for or against you. These are some of the saddest cakes I've seen yet! Something to tell your grandchildren about!

Of course Murphy's Law is not rescinded for anyone's wedding day, and things are bound to go wrong. But I know a cake decorator--professional, though she's young and has only been in business for a few years--who would never, ever let anything like these out of her shop. She would be ashamed of making a cake that bad. It seems to me that the people who offered up these messes have no such sense of pride (or no ability to realise what they've done).

RE: the second one being a faux-wreck, don't be so sure. It's possible that the bride assumed the decorator would replace the initials with her own, and it's possible that the decorator assumed that she wanted the cake to be identical to the photo and so incorporated the same initials. There are a lot of non-communicative people in the world, and a lot of them are involved in weddings.

Incidentally, wvotd: phoottee. It perfectly mimics the sound I made when I saw today's wrecks :)

"By the by, I don't monogram much, but I think the middle initial is supposed to be larger than the other two."

Sure it is, that's where the last name goes. My mom and dad (let's call them "K" and "D") were married in 1973, and they STILL have a huge collection of cheap cocktail glasses with "KHD" gouged into the side.

Heh, Adele, et.al. - that "grass" is dill. Dill! I mean, honestly, even if greenery was requested (and it wasn't; I read about this cake from the bride on a different site), why not faux greenery that wouldn't potentially leave a pickle-like taste to the frosting? Yikes.

Stephanie said... As a florist with 15 years of experience, I have decorated thousands of wedding cakes. Let me say here, that I have never seen it turn out well when the flowers are placed by the decorator. So my tip would be you pay for a florist let them do their part as well, and no frosting bombs/roses will end up on your cake instead of hydrangeas. Ohhh, the wrecks I have tried to hide with a few well placed flowers.----Interesting, I guess it wouldn't have occurred to me to split that job, but it makes sense now that you've pointed that out. I was going to comment on why when first cake was supposed to have fewer rose petals, that translated into "sick petals to cake, add greenery."

Agree with Sugarshock (at 11:20 AM) - this is as much the fault of the brides who entrusted the task to somebody's aunt's cousin's BFF. You get what you pay for. The classy plates, napkins, etc next to the cakes are a dead giveaway: shotgun wedding!

I notice more times than not, that these wrecks are placed on nicely decorated tables, with the plates and utensils, sitting there in their lumpy horror taunting the bride throughout the reception.... I think that people need to start looking at these people's ACTUAL work first before they agree on a baker.

OMG I cant believe they actually took these home and showcased them!! I am an amature baker who works out of my small kitchen, and I can honestly say that these three cakes are NOT hard to reproduce! It amazes me that the brides didnt look at the bakers portfolios of cakes they ACTUALLY made.

People, look carefully: the monogram on the example cake is MTR and the wreck is MSK. That's not evidence that the baker didn't follow the instructions with respect to the monogram. I don't know about the Claire G part, but I do know many people whose commonly known names, or screen names are not the same as their screen names.

For best results the combination of initials would be designed by a calligrapher, but at minimum it could be elegantly and consistently applied.

Bravo to the decorator who said he only did butter cream and warned the bride that he didn't know how to do what she wanted. I fly airplanes for a living and if the client asks me to do something beyond my or my airplane's abilities I say, "sorry, I can't do that." I certainly don't say "I'll see what I can do" and then make an airplane wreck!

So, uh, just be glad these people are decorating, not flying. I can't imagine an airplane wrecks blog being quite so hlarious.

The "you get what you pay for" thing is a little off base. My hubby and I were on a VERY limited budget (I'm talking about $1500 for the ENTIRE wedding - luckily we had people helping us and that cut costs a lot). We got our wedding and groom's cakes from Meijer, and they turned out fabulous. They looked just like the pictures and didn't totally break our budget.

I think some people just can't decorate. Doesn't matter if you're paying $7 or $7000.

I hate to say it, but it looks like these brides didn't see examples of the "decorator's" previous work. If they didn't, caveat emptor. Buyer beware. A little more research would've helped, I think. I highly doubt these "professionals" did amazing cakes before only to ruin these.

I really don't think it's a matter of trying to replicate the look of fondant with buttercream - the first one clearly IS buttercream (you can't get corners that sharp with fondant) and it looks to me like the second one might be as well. Regardless, of course buttercream is never going to be mistaken for fondant, but you can get buttercream to look a LOT smoother and nicer than these wrecktasrophes. I can get buttercream to look better than that, and I'm no professional - I learned it in week ONE of the Wilton I course. You can find tutorials on how to do it on YouTube for Pete's sake! Yes, it's a skill that requires practice to master, but if you can't do it, you shouldn't be making cakes for money. Period.

These are my favorite types of wrecks! When I have to wait a full 24 hours in anticipation and see only one picture I feel so teased!! These are the best wrecks! It's hard to believe someone had the audacity to present those as wedding cakes. I'd kill 'em! - Diana

These are like nails on a chalkboard to me. I know plenty of home bakers who do a better job of this who haven't so much as had a single class on cake decorating! I agree if you can't do it don't agree to it!

My condolences to the bride. And I don't believe in the get what you pay for theory. I have done many things for free that have never been this bad. Or even bad at all.

Most of the cake wrecks are so funny to me. But the wedding cake ones make me mad! It's beyond me how someone could claim to be competent at this art of decorating and then turn out those cakes and expect to be paid! Do they even realize that they are single-handedly RUINING the most important day of someone's life?! So ignorantly malicious!

Hello, I'm the proud bride for the first cake. I've enjoyed reading Jen's and everyone's comments quite a bit. Not to worry, our wreck didn't ruin our wedding day... We hadn't planned on having a cake cutting ceremony anyway, so most guests never even noticed it before it was taken away to get cut up. The camouflage helped, I guess.

But regarding the "you get what you pay for" comments... I'm sad to report we paid nearly $400 for that cake, for 65 portions. The bakery was a professional one, and came highly recommended from our very nice and respectable venue. We asked for a white cake with 3 roses on top, and 5-6 scattered petals. I still don't understand how this happened. Oh well!

Great blog. Those cakes are absolutely horrible. I love seeing the examples before and then the actual cakes. WOW!!! I hope for the sake of future brides and grooms, those bakers are out of business now.

Wow, those are really sad. My mom made my wedding cake and it looked a million times better than any of those. I can't believe how badly they messed up the last one, too. Square white tiers? How hard is that??? I think I could make that.

I agree with Stephanie -- I don't get why the flowers were assigned to the bakers instead of the florist. My mother is a floral designer for weddings, and as a matter of course asks the bridal couple if they would like any florals for the cake -- she has done cake toppers, arrangements around the cake, etc. I am a baker, and if a bride asked for floral elements on the cake, my bakery would recommend she work with her florist on that.

It's my impression that it is not usually the bakers that work with the floral elements of the cake -- which may be why the hydrangeas provided were (badly) replicated in buttercream on that cake. They probably thought the flowers were models and the ribbon was a color sample.

i'm really annoyed by the many commenters blaming the brides for their wrecks. you should not have to pay several hundred dollars to get a presentable cake. none of these cakes involves enough artistry to justify such an expense. none of these cakes should have ever left the bakery. that is the fault of the wreckers, not the person who ordered.

I love the way the blue flowers in the ribbonless ribbon cake have been organised on one side to cover up the fact that the cake isn't straight. The lengths bakers go to hide their fails. And fail in hiding them, too.

I have to admit I loathe the idea of spending $700+ on a wedding cake but that's because I loathe the idea of spending 15 grand on a wedding. For a couple hundred dollars I could buy all of the supplies and make a half dozen practice cakes before the big day until I'm happy with a design.

I can see the "you get what you pay for" argument on both sides. I've been to a lot of bakeries that seem to have beautiful cakes on display but you see stuff come out of them and go "Yag! What happened? Did you drop it?" only to find out that the baker that did the lovely cakes in the display quit last year and the bakery has just kept an assortment of decorated styrofoam cakes in storage.

At the same time... if bakeries with good reputations quote you $700 for a cake and another baker quotes $100 you SHOULD be wary. If on the other hand both bakeries quoted $700 and a wreck showed up on your wedding day? Well, I'd refuse to pay them.

It's such a pity for the brides though. I hope none of them were TOO upset about it... but considering the cake is probably the 1 food item to be immortalized in the photos it's a disappointment when it doesn't turn out.

This makes me so incredibly grateful that my wedding cake turned out as well as it did. We went with a small local artist (that's how she referred to herself - an artist whose medium is cakes), gave her a sketch, and she delivered a beautiful, delicious cake at a fraction of the other prices we were quoted.

At the time we were just grateful to have gotten such a good price, as we were on an extremely tight budget. Now, looking at these cakes, I'm even more grateful - as others have commented, I'm sure some of this is due to ill-fated bargain hunting. We were lucky to get cheap AND beautiful!

Word verification: calesses. At first glance I thought it said "cakeless," which is what these poor brides were - or wished they were!

dear god. we paid less than $200 for our wedding cake (which was 3 tiers and served up to 100) and it was beautiful. it was also simple -- we picked a design out of the bakery's book. but i really think if we had asked for any of those they would have been able to pull it off -- especially that first one, that's simple! how do you screw that up??

As a wedding planner, these 'wrecks' just give me major pains...I feel so bad for those brides that these cakes affected. A great wedding planner can sheild any bride from having to deal with unprofessional vendors such as this. I hope each of them got a full refund, because I would not have expected any of my couples to pay for one of those horrible creations.

As a bride-to-be who thought is was safe to just ask for a plain cake with ribbon around the layers; I am now having heart palpitations. I mean, the plaid cake would be hard to do, but how hard is white? Does anyone have an asthma puffer? I think I'll need it...

Re: the "you get what you pay for" comments. We paid $75 for our wedding cake - granted it was a small wedding. But the cake was not only positively gorgeous but also the most delicious cake I've ever had.My only complaint is that during our one night away at the hotel (our honeymoon per se) our house guests polished off the leftover cake so we only each had one small piece. *sniffle*

Okay, there is just NO EXCUSE for that last cake. Anyone who claims to be a professional and comes up with a sorry mess like that needs to just close up shop and move on. I can't believe the bride left stuff for them to use and instead of using it they "created" that cake. Shame, shame, shame!!!

Actually, the last cake really amazes me. I did something similar for my wedding (gave the cake person swatches to match the color and flowers to put on) and mine did a great job--although the color of the icing turned out quite a bit darker than what I'd been expecting, it actually "matched" the wedding colors a lot better! I just don't understand how a cake decorator could receive a picture, the ribbon, and the flowers, and come up with such a mess. The mind is boggled.--Karen

For those who are saying "Why did the brides pay for that?" I know for my wedding, we had a significant deposit put down already. When the baker delivered the cake, I was busy getting my hair done, etc, and I did not actually deal with her myself. I had given the rest of the money to someone I trusted and she made sure the vendors got paid. I think it's fairly common that the cake gets delivered to the reception site and may remain sight unseen by the bride until it is too late to do anything about it.

Luckily, mine was gorgeous. We did it based on the baker's portfolio and the flower topping was provided by the florist, as were the flower petals for the cake table decoration.

Re the "you get what you pay for" discussion: When I was about 10-11, I participated in a cake decorating contest that had EXTREMELY low standards. A few Boy Scouts from a local troop -- none of whom had ever iced a cake before in their lives -- submitted an entry that consisted of regular chocolate frosting, with a real camellia flower in one corner. The Boy Scout entry actually looked pretty good.

Since that time, I have always considered it to be a basic rule of life that:"plain frosting" + "a real flower" = "a 12-year-old kid who has never iced a cake in his life can do it successfully"

Now I see that I was wrong. These poor brides would have been better off hiring a Boy Scout.

SOMETIMES the cake wreck IS the fault of the bride. when i worked in the kroger bakery (hey, the bread always turned out great!) we had a bride come in and order a cake. she wanted pound cake, cause "other cakes are too dry!"

ok. you cannot stack pound cake, it WILL fall. its too heavy. 'oh no, its going to be just fine!' the bakery made her sign a release stating that she HAD been told that the cake would not hold up to being stacked (she wanted 3 tiers separated by the little pillars) and that there was a GREAT chance of it falling.

well...it collapsed. she tried to sue for the bakery ruining her wedding. no dice, we had the signed release that she HAD been warned, and the case was thrown out. some bridezillas want THEIR way no matter what.

I paid $75 for my wedding cake....3 double layer carrot cakes with cream cheese frosting from QFC. Can you tell from the picture?? (Ignore the horrible lighting and the fact that the top layer somehow was on a gold base rather than silver like the others). I didn't tell them it was for a wedding, just got 10", 12" and 14" cakes. And added the flowers myself. Although I must say--I would have totally cracked up with a stupid cake. Actually the guy marrying us totally mispronounced my first name and my husband's last name several times in our ceremony. We thought it was hysterical. Relax. Something WILL go wrong. Be happy that it is something small, and not the marriage itself.

You know when I got married I asked for a heart shaped cake with white fondant icing. The decorator quickly let me know she wasn't comfortable working with fondant and that if that's what I truely wanted then I needed to find someone else. But because she was honest about what she could do, I gave her a chance to show me some of her work, I still wanted heart shaped layers, and I found this very detailed rose pattern with vines that I wanted around the egde. When I got my cake it was gorgeous and it was only $110 and it was delicious! Well all except where my husbands grand mother ran he finger through the icing that's another story. If only these bride would've had my luck. I almost cry for them everytime you do one of these post.

The thing is... the cakes get delivered to the catering company at the venue, usually while the wedding is going on elsewhere. So, between the photos, introductions, toasts, dances, and dinner, most brides don't even get a good look at their cakes until it's time for the big cake-cutting photo op.

Oh, for the love of...I am a fully amateur baker and I definitely could have successfully reproduced the first cake at least. Do people really not know that you have to stick dowels or straws in to keep them from sliding? That piping ain't just for looks, honey.

I'm so perplexed by the 2nd cakewreck. Aside from the fact that anything pictured in a Martha Stewart magazine is probably not to be duplicated by mere mortals, professional or otherwise, I'm really confused about the monogram concept. If Martha's version is a wedding cake, wouldn't that be the first initial of groom, first initial of last name, first initial of bride? As in: Matthew and Rachel Thomas, or whatever. I don't quite know why a bride would have a monogrammed cake for her wedding (with her old initials) and it's even kind of odd for a bridal shower...I'm so perplexed.I'm pretty sure that middle letter (on Martha's cake) is a fancy "T," so the baker not only just copied whatever initials were on the picture, he/she misread them!

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What's a Wreck?

What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

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